AWARD Finalists 2015

WAFA President Tina Lindgreen kicked off the 2015 Awards gala by expressing WAFA’s appreciation to all the applicants.

“It has been such a privilege to receive all the award applications and while the media was writing about all the terrible news in the world, I have had the privilege of reading one award application after another of those amazing people — those amazing things that are happening around the world, that sometimes we hear so little about, and that is really why we have the award.”

That statement summed up the quantity and quality 2015’s pool of applicants. All of them had done such great work around the globe that the selection committee had a hard time coming to a decision! They narrowed it down to three finalists, but were not able to pick just one. So they announced three-way tie with ENPHO from Nepal, SOIL from Haiti, and Turenscape from China. In these and many other countries preventable waterborne diseases in children are all too common. And each winner developed a unique solution!

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Finalists come from countries where drinking water pollution is a serious concern: Nepal, Haiti and China. The high incidence of waterborne diseases in children, like diarrhoea, is a sad common fact in all three countries.

ENPHO – brings water filters to rural and remote places in Nepal in a sustainable way, helping to develop local businesses that manufacture and sell low-tech biosand water filters for home users.

Turenscape: Slow Down – brought a dead river back to life, giving hope that the increase in industrial pollution of lakes and rivers in China can be reversed. China not only faces water-quality issues, but also severe water shortages, especially in the North where water demand greatly exceeds supply.

SOIL – makes available a sanitary solution that prevents human waste from entering the water cycle, thus avoiding groundwater pollution.

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ENPHO trained local entrepreneurs to produce and market affordable, low-tech biosand filters for rural villages in Nepal. Find out more here!

Turenscape’s low-tech wetland system broughtan industrial city’s contaminated river back to health, proving industrial pollution can be reversed naturally. Find out more here!